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by WILL FOLKS
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South Carolina lawmakers are inching closer towards adopting a tax reform which would pave the way for potentially thousands of Palmetto State residents to ditch harmful cigarettes in favor of considerably less harmful heated tobacco products (or HTPs).
Such a far-reaching shift could lead to substantially lower health care costs – assuming our state’s leaders don’t gum up the works by heeding the big government machinations of the state’s increasingly left-leaning mainstream media.
This week, a pair of bills will receive consideration from the S.C. Senate finance committee – including legislation sponsored by state senator Tom Davis. A staunch fiscal conservative and one of the ranking members of the committee, Davis has introduced a bill – S. 519 – that would set new tax rates for heated tobacco products sold in South Carolina.
Davis’ legislation would impose a tax rate of 1.25 mills per heated cigarette (or $0.025 per pack of twenty heated cigarettes). According to a fiscal impact study (.pdf) prepared by the S.C. Revenue and Fiscal Affairs (SCRFA) office, the bill would generate an estimated $620,000 annually for the Palmetto State’s general fund.
Generating revenue isn’t really the point, though… its goal is reducing the harmful effects of smoking. And more to the point, reducing the costs to taxpayers associated with that harm.
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We support Davis’ bill because it accurately reflects the proportionally reduced risk associated with heated tobacco products, which are dramatically different from conventional (combustible) cigarettes in that they are heated at a controlled temperature which delivers nicotine without smoke and its harmful toxins.
The more people start picking up these sticks… the fewer will pick up pure cancer sticks.
A separate bill – H. 4303 – would impose a significantly heftier tax of 14.25 mills per heated cigarette (or $0.285 per pack of twenty heated cigarettes). Per a separate SCRFA fiscal impact (.pdf), this legislation – which cleared the S.C. House of Representatives last year by a 93–6 margin – would generate an estimated $7.05 million annually for the state.
Beyond these two bills is a third option – one breathlessly advanced by a far left scribe at The (Charleston, S.C.) Post and Courier, a publication which has never met a tax increase it didn’t like. Editorial writer Cindi Ross Scoppe has made it her mission to sink both of these bills, arguing the Palmetto State should tax smoke-less cigarettes the same as regular cigarettes – and perhaps even higher.
According to Scoppe, the S.C. General Assembly “has no business slashing the too-low tax it already has” on tobacco products.
Per the terms of a 2010 tax hike – which this media outlet staunchly opposed due to its lack of offsetting tax relief – cigarettes in South Carolina are currently taxed at $0.57 per pack. However, only $0.07 of that per-pack tax is earmarked for the general fund. Most of the revenue subsidizes Medicaid costs.
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During the 2024-2025 fiscal year, taxes on cigarettes generated roughly $99.7 million of revenue – of which $12.3 million went to the state’s general fund, $5 million went to the Medical University of South Carolina, $5 million went to smoking cessation efforts and the balance ($77.4 million) went to Medicaid.
Scoppe must have quite a fondness for this revenue stream because she has previously termed the tax rate fueling it “embarrassingly low” – and urging it be increased (and expanded to cover heated tobacco).
Perhaps such an argument could be credibly advanced in the case of conventional cigarettes, but not less harmful heated tobacco products. Shouldn’t we want to incentive healthier choices?
Seriously… isn’t saving lives and saving tax dollars the objective here?
According to the latest data (.pdf) from the S.C. Department of Public Health (SCDPH), approximately 11.8% of South Carolina adults were smokers as of 2023 – down precipitously from 27% in 1992. That’s still half a million people acorss the Palmetto State lighting up, though – and these smokers are causing an estimated $2.2 billion in annual costs to the state’s health care system each year, according to numbers cited by Scoppe herself.
Not only is assessing a “cigarette tax” on non-cigarettes inherently unfair, it runs the risk of pricing these heated tobacco products out of the reach of countless South Carolinians who might otherwise try them as a means of kicking the smoking habit.
That’s terrible public policy… unless you’re addicted to growing government no matter who it hurts.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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1 comment
I quit smoking almost 20 years ago, with a few slip ups here and there. Unfortunately, I now have emphysema. I manage it well by losing some weight and…vaping! Not the fruity candy vapes favored by teens, but the type that give me the things I crave without all the harmful things in tobacco. My pulmonologist wishes I didn’t vape at all, but he admits that the harm from my vape is so much less than from a cigarette. I can definitely tell the difference. I’d guess I’d be nearly dead by now had I continued to smoke cigarettes. Please let me manage my nicotine addiction without further punishment.